4.21.14 Sis. Jensen

Dear Family,                                                                                                                         April 21, 2014

Say hello to Utah for me! There are times when I miss that place. I never thought I would ever miss Utah but I kind of do. I'm glad you're able to take full advantage of the week. You all really need a break. 

WHAT A WEEK! I love love LOVE being busy! As a companionship, we have been trying to implement a new way of planning (rather, planning as suggested in "Preach My Gospel") and we have had a MUCH better week because of it. Our days are a lot more full and we have better plans. Instead of getting to the end of the week and realizing we haven't visited 8 of the 10 people we wanted visit that week, we use weekly planning to schedule specific times on specific days to see less active members, potential investigators and times to door knock. There have been several times this past week when I have said to Sister Mortensen, "Why weren't we doing this last transfer?" You would think the Brethren were inspired or something when they wrote "Preach My Gospel"....

(Volunteering at the Ronald McDonald House)

Are you ready for the best news of the week?? WE HAVE TWO INVESTIGATORS!!! AAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!! :D :D :D This is the best thing to ever happen to me thus far on my mission! We have been so blessed by the prayers of our district, the members and our families! We know that it is not just our faith working miracles! We met with Larry last night and he's reading the Book of Mormon. AGAIN. I think that Spirit is working with him and I can really see him accepting the gospel this time. He and his wife are truly amazing and we love them already! The other investigator we have is a lady named Sherisse (pronounced like "Charice"). We met Sherisse when we were meeting with a less active member and Sherisse came over to pick up a child for a play date. Jodi (our less active member) just blurted out, "Hey! Want to learn more from the sister missionaries?" Awkward? Yes. But a miracle? Yes, definitely yes. We taught a lesson to her yesterday which was really entertaining. We got lessons mixed up and what started as the first lesson didn't finish as the first lesson. The whole time I was praying that she would just feel the Spirit because even if we didn't make sense, hopefully the Spirit did. We have a return appointment with her so maybe it wasn't all bad? The moral of the story is communication with your companions is key.

Probably one of the harder things of the week was our "breakup". We have been trying our darnedest to work with a part member family. Sister Mortensen and Sister Anderton found them the transfer before I got here and they were able to teach a lesson to their family who showed interest in learning more. It has been a goose chase for the past three months. We finally got the members of our ward involved and we were sure that this was going to start really progressing but when we went over to their house this last Thursday, the news came out: the church was not for them. Missionary work is one of the most heart breaking things you will ever do. You spend months pouring your heart out in prayer and doing your hardest work to help people accept the Gospel and then they use their agency to reject something that you KNOW FOR A FACT will bless their family in ways they can't comprehend. People don't understand what they're turning down. Our experience with this family reminds me of Jeffery R. Holland's talk from this past General Conference: "Sadly enough, my youngfriends, it is a characteristic of our age that if people want any gods at all, they want them to be gods who do not demand much,comfortable gods, smooth gods who not only don’t rock the boat but don’t even row it, gods who pat us on the head, make us giggle, thentell us to run along and pick marigolds." Living the Gospel of Jesus Christ requires people to work hard. It requires us to sacrifice. It requires us to be better than what we naturally are as humans. But it is SO. WORTH IT. Why can't more people see that? We bore our testimonies to him and walked away with heavy hearts. Sister Mortensen and I were really bummed the rest of the night. But do you know what? God doesn't close one door without opening compensating doors. (See "Trust in the Lord" Richard G. Scott, October 1995) There must be some great miracles ahead!

I have felt nothing but gratitude this morning: gratitude that I didn't have to wear a coat yesterday or today; Gratitude for my Savior; Gratitude to be a missionary in the best mission on earth; Gratitude to have the Holy Ghost as my companion in addition to my two amazing companions; Gratitude for the difficult things Heavenly Father asks me to do; Gratitude for charity; Gratitude for the sunshine. I am seeing that there are a lot of things to be thankful for. What have you been thankful for recently?

(An object lesson gone awry, and awfully cute!)

I love receiving emails from all of you every week. I always read my "business" emails first and save the best emails for last. I savor each one and I am grateful for your love and support. I have the best family ever. I love you all so much!

I hope you all have a fantastic week in Utah. Please stay safe!

Go forth with faith!

The Michiganary

4.14.14 Sis. Jensen

Dear Family,                                                                                                                                           April 14, 2014

The subject line is actually kind of ironic because there is a dam here in Rockford but we should hope that it doesn't break. That would be bad. I'm talking about the Missionary Work Dam! Whenever we ask our mission president what he would like us to do in Rockford he tells us to keep working hard and that "it only takes a few cracks in the dam for it to burst". We have seen a couple cracks this week!

Thursday was a MIRACLE DAY. We had a long day of planning and we were worried about getting the most out of the time we had left. So we said a prayer and headed out. Because the snow has melted, we decided to save some miles on our car and walk to the area we wanted to work in. As we were walking we came up to a street and I asked Sister Mortensen, "Has this street been done?" She was like, "I don't know. Let's knock it." First person we meet: "Yeah I had a friend 15 years ago who talked to me about the Mormon church. The Book of Mormon? Yeah, I've read parts of it." The second person: "The Book of Mormon? Yeah, I read it with my Bible. When I don't understand something in the Bible, I pull out the Book of Mormon to clarify it. My friend used to take me to your church." What?? That never happens! People usually don't like it when we bring up the Book of Mormon but out of the three people we talked to on that street, two of them had positive experiences with the church AND the Book of Mormon! 

This was the CRAZY part. So we continued our "Knock and Walk" and we decided to turn down a street we had done a month ago to get to another street we hadn't knocked yet. As we reached the corner on the end of the street, this guy in a car passing us frantically waved at us and pulled over. We were close to a member's house so I thought it was a member and waved back. Suddenly this man appears and I have no clue who he is and he asks, "Are you those Mormon girls?" Usually when we hear that, someone is about to bash us. We said "yes" when really what we wanted to do was cover our name tags and run away. He says, "I haven't seen you in years! I love the sister missionaries! They used to come over to my house for dinner."....Wait. WHAT. It turns out that this man and his wife were best friends with the sister missionaries ten years ago and still keeps in contact with them. He then told us that he's read the Book of Mormon twice, been to church, and we could come over and "talk religion with him" because he had questions. Excuse us while we pick our jaws up from the sidewalk. Things like this don't ever happen to us. We are hoping that this is a miracle we have been praying/working for. Last night he told us that he gave his two copies of the Book of Mormon away to other people and he wanted another copy. Larry is incredible. He says that he won't become a Mormon but I can tell that he is honestly seeking truth. 

What really baffles me about all of this is the timing. There have been elders in Rockford who haven't met them. When the sisters opened Rockford last October, they knocked just about every street including that street and didn't find them. Sister Anderton, Sister Mortensen and I knocked the street LAST MONTH, even knocking on that house and talking to a person in that house, and yet we didn't meet them. And then we happened to be walking down Ogden Street at just the right time to catch him as we has going to a meeting and he recognized us. CAN ANYONE ELSE NOT SEE HOW INCREDIBLE THIS IS?? There are no coincidences!!! Prayers are being heard!!! God is orchestrating this work! It still blows my mind to think about it. I am hoping and praying that this is a sign that the timing is right!

I am so grateful for my Savior Jesus Christ. I think Easter is probably my favorite holiday. Not only are there really pretty happy colors everywhere but we have a day to be grateful for the resurrection of our Savior. When he rose, no longer would death be an end. With the resurrection, he gained victory over the grave and allowed God's plan to move forward, for us to return "home to that God who gave [us] life." I am so grateful that the Savior chose to suffer for me. He didn't have to suffer for any of us. He being perfect would have made it back into God's presence. But because of God's love for us and because of Jesus's desire to do the will of the Father, he suffered so that we could be free; free from death, sin, sorrow, pain, anger and all other human imperfection. I know that my Savior lives and loves me. I know that it is only through his grace and mercy that we can be healed. It has stuck out to me this morning how often in 3 Nephi  Jesus Christ asks us to come to him so that he can heal us. I know we can be healed through his atonement. Because of him, I have been healed. 

 There are a lot of good things happening here in Rockford. We are making progress, slow but still moving forward. We have a lot of potential investigators we are planning to see this week and we are praying that we will see some good fruit soon! Thank you for your continued prayers! They are producing miracles!

Love always, the Michiganary

4.7.14 Sis. Jensen

My dear family,                                                                                                                      April 7, 2014

Thank you for the pictures! I laughed really loud when I saw Tim with the umbrella and then I had to quiet myself because I was in the library. Thank you for the good laugh. I didn't think turkeys could be so ugly.

(Three toms in the back yard.  We sent Tim  to chase them off.)

Wasn't General Conference AMAZING?? When the last session ended I looked at Sister Mortensen and said, "Can we watch these on repeat, please?" Wow, we are so blessed to receive such amazing counsel! I don't know where to begin because I got something from EVERY talk I watched. We missed the first hour of Saturday afternoon because we found a less active member that we've been trying to contact for over a month. That was a miracle and I'm grateful we found her but admittedly, I am a little bummed that I missed half of that session. Anyway, this session of conference I really wanted to do an experiment: pray about some questions and listen for the answers. My questions were "How can I completely give my heart and mind to God?" and "How can I deepen and strengthen my conversion?". I also wanted to know what "treasures in Heaven" meant. ALL THREE OF THEM WERE ANSWERED. It was amazing! It's not so much that there were talks specifically about conversion or giving our heart and mind to God but when we got to the end of the Sunday afternoon session, I thought about a reoccurring theme I noticed: obedience. How often did the speakers talk about obedience to our covenants, principles/doctrines of the Gospel, etc? Like multiple times every session. How do we strengthen our testimonies and give of ourselves to God? Obedience. I loved Elder Hales's talk about obedience: Do we use "Natural Man's Obedience" or "Selective Obedience" when it comes to God's commandments? There were powerful promises given to us this General Conferences. I plan to experiment on their words and work as hard as I can these next six months to be better. I loved President Monson's invitation to be a little kinder. Out of everything Heavenly Father could ask us to do, great or small, He has asked His prophet to tell us to be a little kinder. Wow, it blew me away. A little kindness goes a long way. Plus you just feel awesome knowing that you've helped someone along their way. Awesome. awesome, awesome. I wish we could spend the next couple hours just talking about the insights we gained from General Conference because I know we all saw something different and all of it is important! Isn't General Conference AMAZING! And Sister Linda Reeves talk about pornography? Loved every minute of it! What a bold, loving lady. I LOVED THE BOLDNESS of this conference!  

This week was really good! Our district leader went home last transfer so we got a new district leader this transfer and I don't think he likes that none of us have any solid investigators. So this transfer he wants us to find 15 new investigators as a district which would mean 15 new investigators as a ward. I will be honest: I was a little apprehensive at first because I don't think that we should make goals based on other people's agency. BUT I am willing to exercise more faith and do my best to reach this goal. If he has prayed about it and feels like this is the goal is in accordance with Heavenly Father's will, Heavenly Father will place people in our paths and I need to have the faith and hope that He will do that. It's definitely a stretching goal but we are calling upon the faith of our ward members and the faith of our district to reach this goal. Thank you for your added faith and please keep praying for us!

I love you all so much! I have felt my love for my family increase while being out here. I am so blessed to be a part of a strong family and I love you all for your support. We are so blessed to have the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we are blessed daily through our knowledge. I love being a witness of God's love for His children and I love having the Spirit with me every day as I am worthy of it. I love my mission and I am so grateful for all of my experiences here. I am really looking forward to the next 16 months!

Have a wonderful week! Don't forget where your strength lies!

Pineapples for Peace!

The Michiganary

PS Who was the first prophet to go through the MTC?

Moses because he was the first to cross through the Emp-Ty Sea!  

I know, lame missionary humor. Just laugh and move on.

Sis. Jensen March 31, 2014

Dear Family,

 

You don't know how incredibly happy I am to have SUNSHINE. Why must I be codepnedent on the sun?? And it's 50 degrees outside!! That's always really nice. I love my boots and my polar expedition coat but I also love being able to wear flats and a light coat. I'm enjoying it while I can.

This week was pretty good! We picked up Sister Harris on Monday but Sister Anderton wasn't leaving until Tuesday morning so for about 18 hours we had a quadpanionship. The fun part about that was our sleeping arrangements for Monday night. We have to sleep in the same room as our companions and we already have three beds in a tiny room. What's one more at that point? The Johnsons were kind enough to let us borrow a blow up mattress and for a night, there was a chorus of heavenly snores in that room. Missionary work is an adventure!

Sister Harris is fantastic! She is "most recently" from Kaysville, Utah! It seems that everyone I meet has some connection to Kaysville. There is a missionary in the zone over who is from Kaysville and a member's daughter is marrying a guy from Kaysville. Apparently, Kaysville is not as small as I thought it was.... Sister Harris is the second youngest of 10 kids and was going to Weber State before her mission. She's been on her mission for 13 months and will be heading home in September. She's only had two other areas before coming to Rockford but she has a lot of experience which has been extremely beneficial. Sister Mortensen and I have a great time with her. We all feel so positive about this upcoming transfer!

We had a great week this past week! We've seen a lot of tender mercies and miracles. We did a lot of door contacting and met a lot of really good people. I think we planted a lot of good seeds. One that shows a lot of promise is a man named Mark. We talked with him for probably 7.2 minutes about the Gospel and the Book of Mormon. It was wonderful! He was interested in getting a copy of the Book of Mormon and so we brought back a copy with verses marked in it. We are praying that good things come of it. Please pray for him! (Also, if you could pray for Carol, Jeff, Debra and Rick, John, Dylan, Tori, and Holly we would really appreciate it! We need some progressing investigators!)

One of the many things that I love about being a missionary is working with the members. In Preach My Gospel it defines one of the characteristics of a successful missionary as one who "helps build up the Chruch (the ward) wherever you are assigned to work". I have been so blessed with a great ward, I love the people in this ward! They are putting in a great effort to help up and we can feel their love for us. There are always strong members of the church wherever you go and I greatly admire the faith of the people here in Grand Rapids. It has been a strength for me to work with such wonderful people. I love working with the less active members especially. They have such a strong testimony of the Gospel and if you're patient and you ask the right questions, you can help them see it too. I have been touched by their sweet and simple testimonies of the Gospel.

Because we're missionaries and get really nerdy about the scriptures, here is some fun trivia for you!

1. Where in the scriptures does it talk about Santa Claus?

2. Where in the scriptures is the first food fight?

Yes, they're pretty bad but when you're a missionary, they're HILARIOUS. Just giggle to make me feel better about myself please. Thanks.

I love you all so much! I am so blessed to have a great family! I hope you enjoy the week that lies before you. I know the Lord is mindful of us. He loves us more than we can comprehend. As Elder Pace says, "Is your chin up? Keep it up!"

 

The Michiganary,

Sister Jensen    

 

ANSWERS! You thought I forgot. Ha!

1. Zechariah 2:6 "Ho, ho, come forth, and flee from the land of the north, saith the Lord: for I have spread you abroad as the four winds of the heaven, saith the Lord." (I DIED when I read this one)

2. Zechariah 5:1-2 "Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll. And he said unto me, What seest thou? And I answered, I see a flying roll; the length thereof is twenty cubits, and the breadth thereof ten cubits." (That's a giant piece of bread)

Our Frozen Sister March 24, 2014

Dear Family,                                                                                                                         March 24, 2014

MERRY CHRISTMAS! I am pleased to inform you that it is once again Christmas in Michigan! It has snowed four times this past week. FOUR. TIMES. Excuse me, but wasn't the first day of Spring this last week? Jokes on us apparently. It was snowing this morning right before we had companion study so we decided that "It Came Upon A Midnight Clear" was an appropriate choice for our opening song. I finally understand why Michiganders never take down their Christmas decorations. We even saw a full blown Christmas tree in one persons house this week. I think my California grown body is starting to reject the winter temperatures and clothes that go with it. I just can't bring myself to wear two pairs of pants, gloves and snow boots in SPRING. My body calendar keeps saying, "It's March/April and that means shorts." The elders in my district were giving me a hard time last week because I showed up to district meeting two weeks ago in a knee length skirt and regular shoes. I'm pretty sure they kept their comments about my pasty white legs to themselves. 

Besides the fact that Michigan can't get it's seasons in order, I'm great! I think I had the flu this past week because I remember getting home from district meeting on Wednesday and falling asleep and not waking up until 5 the next morning. I can honestly say that I don't think I've slept for 15 hours in a row before so that was a new experience. I'm doing a lot better now. Sister Anderton and Sister Mortensen were able to get a lot of things done (updating our area book, putting together a map of our area and contacting a lot of potentials) while I was out so it thankfully wasn't a complete waste of the day. 

Transfer numero uno just ended! I am on my second transfer! That transfer was an ETERNITY. It can't believe that only a transfer ago I was leaving the MTC. It feels like the MTC was at least a year ago. I think part of the whole time distortion thing is that there are really only three days in a week for missionaries: Sunday, P-Day and the rest of the week. It is really hard to differentiate days so I think that contributes a lot my whole skewed perception of time. Whenever I go to write emails I have to have my planner out so I can look at each day and remember what we did. So. Much. Mental. Exertion. Anyway, here are the changes for this transfer: SIster Anderton is being transferred to Big Rapids (an hour North of here and colder. Take that Brazil!) and we are getting a sister from Mason named Sister Harris. I do not know anything about Sister Harris other than she's been out about a year and that she is really sweet. I am excited to work with her and Sister Mortensen this transfer. I am extremely hopeful that the Spring will thaw out the Michiganders and their hearts and we'll see more success in the coming transfer. The elders in my ward are making some great progress with their investigators so there is the potential for some great things in the Grand Rapids Ward! 

We had a miracle this week. We have been trying to visit a less active member in our ward for weeks now. We met with her once and had a great time with her and her four and eight year old sons. She hasn't been active since she started college and we really think that if we can get her to church, it will rekindle a flame. The problem that we have been facing is that she won't let us in to her apartment complex. I think I mentioned a couple weeks ago that everything fell out of my bag but it ended up being a good thing because it delayed us getting to the door and getting there right when someone was coming out so we got into the building and were able to knock on her door. That's how we got in the first time. She missed the appointment we had with her and we've been trying ever since to get in touch with her. Last couple times we've gone the light has been on in her apartment and every time we buzz the apartment, the light goes off. Well, this last time we went we prayed for a miracle. We prayed that somehow we would get into her building. As we walked to her building, I was watching intently, waiting for someone to come out of the building so we could catch the door. No one came. The light in the apartment was on and we buzzed. The light went off. We all looked at each other and knew that we were all feeling/thinking the same thing. Sister Mortensen half jokingly pulled on the door to see if it was open and to our utter amazement, the door opened. We stared at the door and each other dumbfounded for a couple seconds. We had been given a miracle. We'd been given the thing we prayed for. I've reflected a lot on it since and once of the things I have learned from it is that I shouldn't limit the way Heavenly Father can answer my prayers. I was expecting that Heavenly Father would answer my prayer in a couple ways and I didn't give consideration to the fact that He can answer my prayer anyway He sees fit, even ways I haven't considered. I wonder how many ways thus far He has answered my prayers and I just haven't realized it yet. That's a humbling thought. She wouldn't answer her door but we ran into a guy who "just so happened" to be walking out of his apartment when we got there and told us that he'd been to our church in Florida. Wait, what? He liked the church there so we gave him the address to the church here. Then he went back into his apartment. Heavenly Father produces miracles all the time. It's awesome.

Here is the best story of the week: Sister Mortensen and I scare Sister Anderton all the time because it's hilarious. We were having a family home evening lesson with the Johnson Family and Brother Johnson told us about scaring the pants off of his son one night (It involved Trent talking to himself for 10 minutes, Bro. Johnson hiding in a closet and Connor getting so scared he whinnied like a horse and posed like a velociraptor. It was hilarious) so naturally  we told them about how much we like scaring Sister Anderton. After our lesson, Sister Anderton had to use the restroom. Once she was in there, Sister Johnson leaned down to us and said, "Sisters, go scare Sister Anderton." We then looked at Brother Johnson and said, "Brother Johnson, YOU scare Sister Anderton." So he went and hid under a table just around the corner from the bathroom and waited. It could not have gone more perfectly. We asked Brother Johnson afterwards what he thought of Sister Anderton freaking out and he said, "I didn't expect it to be so high." Sister Anderton is a good sport about it but yesterday when we went over to their house Sister Anderton made us promise that we wouldn't scare her. 

I always don't think I have anything to say about the week but then I look back and realize that I write a lot. Before I go, I want to extend an invitation to you this week. We have been talking a lot with the members about the power of the Book of Mormon. When we read the Book of Mormon, we are reading the words that God has given to the prophets and as God's word, there is power in the Book of Mormon. There is an incredible Spirit that comes as we read the Book of Mormon. I can't imagine a better book to gain comfort, peace, or determination from. I know that the Book of Mormon has the power to touch lives in a way that our words can't so my invitation to you this week is to share a scripture that has touched your life with someone else. It could be a member, non-member, less active or a home/'visiting teachee, just share a scripture with them and why it has meant so much to you. Or even just send a text that says, "Hey, I thought of u. Read D&C 50:40-44". Get creative, be simple. :)

I love you all so much! Have a fantastic week!

Your Michiganary,

Sister Jensen 

Sis. Jensen, March 17, 2014

Dear family,                                                                                                                                          March 17, 2014

I can't believe it's Monday again! ("No, I specifically remember Monday being last week." Anyone, anyone? Tangled.) I look forward to Mondays. It's nice just to feel connected to the world in a small way. You all sound SO BUSY! What happened to the simple life? Applause to mom for being the miracle bus driver and meeting goer. Geez. And congrats to Tim for your victories! I am so proud of you! You little stud, you. Hopefully Angela and Dad get to see you more than just the mornings.  

This week has been... good. We have been facing a lot of challenges here in Rockford. This last week I told my companions, "You know all those missionary videos you watch before your mission, with the great "Called to Serve" music in the background and you want to cry because you imagine yourself like that? I have discovered that they are all a lie." Not really but I catch myself thinking sometimes, "This is not what I saw on Youtube or The District videos." Lessons you teach in person rarely happen like the ones you seen in the videos, they're definitely more awkward than you would think. I wish contacting and getting referrals was as easy as they make it look in the videos. Plus bizarre things happen ALL THE TIME when you're a missionary. You just attract weird. Maybe because we're a little peculiar ourselves that we're naturally just drawn together. Missions are always a grand adventure.

The troubles we have been facing for the past couple weeks is that EVERY THING has been falling through. Our backups to our backups to our backups have been falling through, that's how bad it's been. We had a training meeting a couple weeks ago and someone said that "your plans should be good enough that people's agency isn't a reason that plans fall through" which made us feel like terrible missionaries because sometimes that's what happens. If people's agency wasn't a reason that things fall through, we wouldn't need backup plans. Or in our case, backup backup backup plans. One of the funny Michiganderisms (Michi-gander-isms: quirky things that the people of Michigan do) is a thing called "West Michigan Nice". Translation: Yes! we'd love to have you come back. *two days later* We love our church and we're not interested. It happens all the time. We've gotten pretty good at telling which people are being honest with us and the ones who are just being "West Michigan Nice". I think the purpose of it is to not appear rude and offend people when you first meet them but then they end up doing that anyway the second time around. In my mind, it's kind of the equivalent of "Bless her heart" in the South. 

In spite of the Michiganderisms we run into, Rockford is a great community. I have met so many great Christian people here. We sometimes like to drop in on a potential investigator named Christi. She has a wood working shop/garage thing called "The Garage of Wonders" (look it up on Facebook). Christi is seriously awesome. She is so full of love for people and loves to rocking out to Christian music. She always welcomes us in and loves to talk with us about the church. We wish she would stop reading anti and let us teach her. Maybe someday we'll reach that step. We also have a  potential investigator named Carol. She is super into family history and her Finnish ancestry. We have been trying to get her to come with us to the Family History Center and do some research but weather and life has been getting in the way. She loves to have us over though and feed us. We're trying to introduce the Gospel more and more and hopefully by coming with us to the FHC, we can make some progress.

I think part of the missionary calling is being able to eat. Seriously, there are no bounds. Even if you're full to the max you still find ways to fit down another helping and dessert. We had a couple days where we got double booked for meals or a person we visited would feed us right before a dinner appointment so we learned to shimmy it down and thank our host. You are also able to eat weird things as a missionary. When you visit a member in a poor part of town, you know what it means for them to be feeding you and you better eat what's on your plate, honey. I am really looking forward to it being above freezing in mornings so I can go outside and run around.

Funny story: it's been killing us that we been using our car so much so I proposed a brilliant idea: let's plan things to do in the area around our apartment so we can walk to places instead of using our car. Things have been melting and so I thought the sidewalks should at least be clear enough to walk on them. I was wrong. There was instead all the snow from the roads on top of the sidewalks. So we hiked up our skirts and climbed on top of the drift and started walking on top of the snow. I assumed that it was all packed snow. Instead it was a thin layer of ice and then melting snow underneath so as we walked we would sometimes stay on top of the ice but more often we would break through the ice into knee deep, dirty snow. This is how our steps went: Step, step, step, step. THWUMP, shriek, step ste-THWUMP, step, step, step, TWHUMP, THWUMP, THWUMP. I don't think Sister Anderton was very happy with my suggestion by the end and I'm pretty sure everyone who saw us walking thinks that those Mormon girls who knock on their door are even more strange. Oh well. I made it up to her and suggested that we go and get peanut butter pie to celebrate Pi Day. Always a good choice.  

The work is slow but we're starting to see some blessings poke through. We got a referral from a member without asking! It was awesome! A guy researched our church and went to Sacrament meeting yesterday because he wanted to. He's not even a member! A member told us yesterday that our presence is noticed in the community and people are warming up to us being here. It's starting to warm up so more people are willing to talk to us at the doorstep. The priesthood blesses lives and that's always a good thing. My companions and I have been talking about the trials we've been facing recently and we've come to the consensus that even though we walk through thorns now, we will look back and only see roses. This work is hard but I can see the roses starting to bloom, especially in my personal life. The Lord's hand is everywhere and as President Monson promised us this last General Conference, "He will not fail thee nor forsake thee." I know that Heavenly Father loves His children. He loves us individually. I know He knows me and my needs and He blesses us as we do those things that please Him. We just need to trust His timing and know that everything will work out for our good.

I love you all so much and I am grateful for your prayers. I know it is silly but it is definitely the prayers of His people that allows imperfect and weak things to do such a great work. Have a wonderful week!

Sister Jensen

PS My companions and I were brainstorming FHE games awhile ago and I brought up the squirt bottle game that we used to play on Monday nights. We've played it with a couple families and they've LOVED it. Everyone looks at me weird when I explain that getting squirted in the face is a good thing but they all love it and we have some great laughs.

Sis. Jensen March 11, 2014

My dearest family,

I got your package! It came on a day that I needed something to be happy about haha. I've been a little sick (flu sick) this past week. I think I picked up something from the ward. Fifteen of the boys in our ward threw up this past week so I can see very easily picking something up from someone there. The package was a nice little package of sunshine. And I LOVE the pictures! I show everyone my wonderful family! 

I was talking to a member yesterday and I asked her what kinds of things she like to hear about from her son that's on a mission in Denver. She said she likes hearing about the little things. So in this email I'd like to tell you about the little things.

We get up at 6:29am. We have an alarm set for 6:10am and one for 6:29am (my companions have a hard time waking up, that's why there's two). We immediately make our beds and kneel and have companion prayer. Then we seperate to "exercise". Exercising in the morning is incredibly difficult and each of us do various things to work out. I usually do yoga because stretching feels nice in the morning and you can lay down and take deep breaths and justify it as yoga. We then get ready for our day (shower, eat, read other materials) and then at 8:00am we have personal study. I always look forward to personal study. My understanding has improved significantly since I started my mission. At 9:00am we gather, sing (something Elders don't do), and discuss our personal studies and plan/practice any lessons that day. At 10:00am, we have training for me. Me and my traniers (companions) go over material every week to help me progress as a missionary. After training, we will either go to Grand Rapids to visit less active sisters or we go to an area to go door knocking. We are allowed 1250 miles this month for our car so we have to use them wisely. When we door knock, we each take turns being the person to start the conversation. We plan lunch at some point in the day and usually more door knocking after lunch when people are more likely to be home (kids are usually getting out of school at this time). Sometimes if we've had a long day of door knocking and we're not seeing a ton of success, we will go visit potential investigators, less active members or members from our ward. We try to have a dinner appointment every night and we've been working on making commitments with the members and following up. We're not allowed to door knock when it's not light outside so in the evenings we do a lot of drop by visits or follow ups with the members in our areas. At 8:30pm we start wrapping things up so we can get home by 9:00pm and do planning for the next day. Sister Anderton likes going to be early so we try to be in bed by 10:00pm. That pretty much sums up every day. Monday is Preparation Day, Wednesday is District Meeting (this Wednesday is Half Mission Training!), Thursday is weekly planning (until 12 or 1pm), and Sunday is church and associated meetings. We stay pretty busy as missionaries.

This week was an interesting week. We got dropped by our investigator B and we were completely fine with that. I think I told you that one time we visited her, we had a weird feeling the whole time. Well this past week, we had that weird feeling again and because of the things she was saying to us, we felt that we shouldn't go back. We're trying to work with a couple of part member families but they keep avoiding us for various reasons. It drives Sister Anderton crazy, but at least we're all learning to have patience and charity. We will be seeing J again this week and we're praying that goes well.

We had a crazy experience door knocking this past week. We ran into a couple while they were walking their dogs and talked to them for a minute about the Book of Mormon and the lady told us flat out that she completely disagreed with it. So we moved on and resumed what we were doing. Well, we knock into this house with its garage door open and cars out front and no one answers. And then they lady comes up the drive way and tells us to come in because she wants to "talk" with us. That's never a good sign because people rarely want to just "talk" when they see us. She kept encouraging us to come inside so we all looked at each other and hesitantly went inside. She sat us down and she said, "I don't think you completely understand what you believe. Let me tell you what you believe." No joke, that is what she said. Lady, don't you see we're missionaries. She then pulled out her notebook and told us a history of our church, what we believed and how it was all wrong. She pulled out some way deep doctrine too, which was really surprising. We asked her what church she went to and she said the Blythefield Baptist Church. Well, that explains a lot. The Blythefield Baptist Church hires a couple preachers who "specialize" in Mormonism to teach their congregation about our heretic ways. They're usually the people you see at General Conference protesting. They even raise money to save our souls. It's kind of mind boggling to think about. The crazy thing was  is that she was pretty spot on about what we believe, it was mostly just out of context doctrine. Yes, you're going to think we worship Joseph Smith when you quote Doctrine and Covenants 135:3 to us and don't include "save Jesus only" in that quote. Whatever, minor details. We were able to bear our testimonies, hand her a card and leave. Right before we left she asked us, "Do you think that I will go to heaven?" That's an interesing question to ask. I really think she was asking a sincere question and I was able to look her in the eye and tell her she would. Hopefully, we planted a good seed.

I wish I had more time to tell you more adventures but I must go! Enjoy the pictures! Help the missionaries in our ward in whatever way you can!

Love,

Sister Jensen